CTC Media backs Russian anti-piracy legislation

Russian broadcaster CTC Media is the latest media firm to throw its support behind legislation to set up establish a single unified monitoring service to find illegal copies of content on the internet.

Commenting on a new recommendatory document that was signed last week by a number of IP rights owners, Sergey Petrov, CTC Media’s chief broadcasting officer, said: “Despite an ongoing debate over the details of the new anti-piracy law, the need for regulation in the distribution of the digital content on the web in general does not raise any doubts.

“The scale of the problem in our country is hard to overestimate. Restriction of the piracy will allow for more effective monetisation of the intellectual property rights and will open new possibilities for various media segments development, providing conditions for fair competition.”

He added that the document – “the first agreement between the industry leaders aimed at coordinated actions against piracy” – will hopefully lay the foundations for cooperation among media platforms, telecoms operators and copyright holders.

“We do also hope that it will help further improve the procedures against illegal actions of pirates. It is an important step towards a more mature and developed market,” said Petrov.

The document was signed on July 25 in the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (ROSKOMNADZOR) and was backed by the head of ROSKOMNADZOR and executives at Channel One, VGTRK, Mobile TeleSystems, MegaFon, National Media Group, Rutube and around 30 other companies.